


Diaboli

by ThePugAddict



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Ardyn seriously crosses the line in this one, Hallucinations, Horror, Masturbation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Other, Smut, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, a bit of feels too, because he's a salty bastard, gender neutral fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 00:41:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10451157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePugAddict/pseuds/ThePugAddict
Summary: “Do not give up hope,” she consoled gently. “Your torment may need higher intervention. Nearby this place lies a church, high up in the hills.” Your cries had slowly come to a halt. When nothing but swollen eyes and wetted cheeks remained, you looked back up. Luna was looking at you once again, this time with a purely blank gaze. “Go there,” she instructed, “and pray.”((This story was originally supposed to be a 500-word drabble requested by an anonymous user. Somehow it turned into a big one-shot instead.))





	

The soft tickle of feathery bangs had already brought a little bit of relief to you. Closing your eyes, growing deeper in tune to what was about to commence, you embraced the generous grace of a smooth forehead against your own. A moment of silence passed between you and the oracle before you started to feel a small glowing warmth taking over its place. Brighter and brighter it grew, beaming upon your head and shoulders like the powerful rays of the sun. The more intense the aura became, the more your heart raced in anticipation of the blessing, desperate for the divine process of that hot light burning away any fragment of darkness that blemished your mind.

 

The session must have lasted only a minute before the warm light gradually died down. Slowly, you opened your eyes to see a countenance that shot a dull pain into your chest. Luna’s eyelids were heavy, but neither from peace nor from loss of energy. Along with them were angelic lips tainted with sorrow.

 

You stared up at the oracle, utterly doe-eyed. “Lady Lunafreya?” you murmured, tone anxiously beckoning for an answer. Your expression must have fueled her sorrow even more. Looking back up at you, her eyes wouldn’t stop connecting with yours like she had let a loved one down. _I’m sorry_ , they kept whispering to you, again and again. _I’m sorry._

 

You were on the verge of beckoning her answer. That was when an inkling struck you that made you understand right away. All the blood felt as if draining out of your face. Your heart stopped dead for a beat before speeding up. You felt no less terrified than a small prey being cornered with nowhere to escape.

 

Again. Those thoughts were intruding your mind. _Again._

Heavy-hearted, Luna sighed deeply. Slowly, she stood back up straight, face turned downward. “I’m sorry,” she said. Every word must have felt like glass in her throat. “There is... nothing I can do.”

 

If words could kill, your body would have been mutilated.

 

Your frightened eyes began to glimmer. “Please,” you mouthed. The unwanted thoughts persisted and protruded higher into your consciousness, forcing your tears out faster. You couldn’t bear it any longer; your mind was ripping at the seams. In your current turmoil, you had practically thrown yourself down before the lady’s feet. “Please,” you said louder through a cracking voice. “Please make it stop.”

 

Falling apart so hard. Luna couldn’t bear the sight of you—it made her too aware that she couldn’t cure it. Still pained, the oracle took a sharp breath in and clutched her trident. She turned away for a moment, taking a few steps from you, the hem of her gown brushing over the mossy stones and making a soft sound that sank your heart.

 

You were probably making her feel horrible, but you couldn’t help yourself. The only song in that garden air was your soft weeping.

 

Luna hadn’t left you during your cries, however. Without you realizing, she had been standing in that very spot the whole time, dead silent. She had almost startled you when she spoke up again. “Do not give up hope,” she consoled gently. “Your torment may need higher intervention. Nearby this place lies a church, high up in the hills.”

 

Your cries had slowly come to a halt. When nothing but swollen eyes and wetted cheeks remained, you looked back up. Luna was looking at you once again, this time with a purely blank gaze. “Go there,” she instructed, “and pray.”

 

~ooo~

 

You wouldn’t take any chances. That night, you obeyed Lady Lunafreya and journeyed off to a location somewhere on the outskirts of the city. There you found the place she had recommended: a small white church, resting at the end of a worn-down path that snaked up a forested incline. The dim light of a few freshly-lit candles told you that someone had entered just before your arrival, yet when you walked in through the old doorway, you saw no one else present.

 

For nearly all your time in that holy place, you were on your knees at the bottom step to the altar. Before the great marble statues resembling the Astrals in all their majesty, you prayed. Oh, by the gods, you prayed like you hadn’t prayed for ages. Your posture didn’t once falter; you refused to let your body go limp or collapse to the cold floor even as your back ached from bending over so much. With your prayers being nonstop, you had gone through every prayer you could possibly recite, repeating the entire list nearly twice.

 

Anything. Any prayer it took. Any homage at all to convince the divine to purge you of your possession. If the last oracle in the world couldn’t save your mind, then the gods had to be the only ones who could. If not, then who else would rescue you? This wasn’t the Starscourge infiltrating your body; you desperately wished it were as it would have been much easier to resolve. Instead, you were being taken by something worse.

 

In the middle of your fourth round of prayers, another one of the dreaded thoughts tried to infiltrate your mind once again. It snapped through your consciousness like a bolt of lightning, cutting the most unholy gash through the very fabric of your inner purity. Startled, you held fast to your prayers and cut it off before it could do any more damage. Unfortunately, what was done was done. The scar was lingering in your thoughts. Forcing yourself through your prayers, all you could do was center your attention on your words to distract yourself from the slideshow of vivid images flashing in your head—a soft, swerved lock of hair veiling an ochre eye, and lips like those on a man who wins the world.

 

Amongst the echo of your whispers, the walls amplified the squeaking of old door hinges. You paid it no attention and blamed it on the wild summer night’s breeze. Perhaps you should’ve closed the doors all the way when you came in. Once this prayer was over, you’d go back to take care of it.

 

By means unknown, it was already done for you. The background noise had fairly stirred you up. The shut and click was too peculiarly smooth for the wind to have been responsible. At the end of your prayer, you kept silent, listening curiously for anything else. You didn’t bother to look back. Was someone else in here now? Most likely one of the priests, or another visitor: nobody of your concern.

 

You listened, but there was nothing. Not even footsteps.

 

Strange, but meaningless. What were you doing stressing over noises? You had better things to fixate on. With that reasoning, you placed your folded hands back up against your forehead, then carried on to the next prayer. Though meaning to focus, you couldn’t shake off the sudden crawl within your skin. Your body almost felt like a bell that had been struck, still vibrating long after the fleeting impact. Was your intuition malfunctioning and making you feel the presence of someone who wasn’t there? Probably. It was very much unwelcome at this hour. Then again, if you had to choose an interruption in your prayers, then the disturbances on the outside were preferred over the ones coming from within.

 

Alas, to your frustration, the curse of paranoia shifted inside your flesh and forced you to pray louder. Soon, that buzzing in your skin traveled up your spine in the form of a trickling chill, then grazed your nape like a phantom’s caress. You would have suspected these feelings to indicate the presence of the gods, had they been pleasant upon your delicate senses. Or maybe that was the cause—you just hadn’t expected it to manifest like this.

 

As you would find out, the physical sensations weren’t strong enough to overshadow everything else. Right away, you knew that the gods weren’t doing this to you—so you discovered in the middle of your next few prayers.

 

The intrusions. For the millionth time, your mind was being attacked by those cursed, dark intrusions! In both fear and agony, you raised your voice. Harder you pleaded the great Astrals to dive into your mind and to shield you against them. More intense images were running through your head against your own will, and it seemed the harder you prayed to cut them off, the more aggressively they persisted. Like a rapidly growing fire, the thoughts were progressively displayed more clearly for every second that passed. Not a moment of relief came to you, no matter how tightly you shut your eyes. If anything, closing your eyes had only made it _worse_. Before you knew it, you were being force fed a single massive image, an illusion that looked so tangible that it nearly made you collapse over. It looked so close that you were almost certain to feel something if you reached out and touched it, but valuing the purity of your soul, you knew very well to do anything but. Instead, in the middle of your current prayer, you couldn’t help but break up your words with painful whimpers. Your stomach churned as you felt your heart launching itself up into your throat. Tears were almost escaping through the joining of your eyelids.

 

Your possession wasn’t over. Far from it. The worst part was this: what possessed you was everything you wanted.

 

You couldn’t tolerate the dreaded hallucination. How badly you wanted to turn the other way, but how badly your human drive kept you fixed upon it. Even if you could turn away, that accursed sight would’ve probably stayed dead-center anyways regardless of where you looked. Every time your watery eyes scanned over it, they couldn’t stop meeting repeatedly with the pair of smoldering orbs that gave you the roughest trembles your body had ever endured, more so than when coming face-to-face with a wild beast. A perfectly edged jawline, decked with a stubble, had gotten just as much attention for framing a strikingly masculine face that made all the hairs stand on the back of your neck. Thin, wide lips that chiseled into a slight curl at their edges were some of the worst culprits of your present fever; you were going to faint if you stared at their evil shape any longer. That, or your heart would stop from watching where his hands journeyed, beginning upon his burgundy godlike tresses. Slowly they descended, down through the smooth, shimmery locks cascading down to his neck. It made you battle between reaching out to do it for him and cuffing your hands behind your back.

 

You were just barely uttering words now. A tear of frustration rolled down your cheek while his hands trailed over his shoulders and chest like a slow waterfall upon rocks. With your attention coming down to his figure, your fever escalated drastically. You grimaced. From head to toe he was completely bare, sun-kissed skin dewy and glowing in the low light, bearing his full front to you as if it were nothing. His hands gradually explored down his figure, long fingers brushing over every perfect curve, edge and bump in his nude flesh as if the details were ancient scripture etched in stone. Even the fine trail of crimson hairs beneath his navel had gotten as much attention. And the anatomy residing below that, of course, would be no exception.

 

People always said that beauty was pain. They always told you that beauty was in the eye of the beholder. But never had they told you that pain wasn’t always with the beauty, but rather with the beholder. Both from the way it all sounded and from what you were enduring, you understood how that secret made sense.

 

How could something be so corrupt and so perfect all at once? The combination was bringing out the very desire you were trying to fight so hard. Tears of frustration were about to turn into cries of desperation. The gorgeous conflict was burning you up so brutally that you felt as if on the verge of your end. There was no way to stop yourself from bursting to flames and ash if you continued to stare at the show any longer. The hands were too perfect, and so was the manhood they so fondly gratified. His act looked like hands working wet pottery as he made even strokes along the reddened shaft. Upon the shapely tip was a glimmering drop that was quickly smeared over by the thumb, then spread around upon the skin, mixed in with the salt and sweat to form a perfect gloss that further exaggerated the beauty.

 

Beautiful, lovely, poisonous filth. Goddamned devil!

Your head spiraled. The image blurred out either from the intent to end there or from your consequential sobbing madness. Either way, it was far past your time. You had more than enough. With no more strength to spend crying out to the gods, you now wasted heavy tears cursing at the bitter agony of your longing. Oh, why? Why in the world was it made so that humans could fall so easily under the dark magic of seducers? Why was it that you could only fall from grace in one direction? Palms that were pressing together were now instead burying your reddening face, muffling your faint, deep bawling. Indeed, it was a sad sight at the foot of those steps. It was perhaps the greatest melancholy those four walls and holy statues had ever seen. Wasn’t a prayer supposed to leave someone feeling hopeful?

 

You would’ve been laying upon your side on the cold chapel floor if it weren’t for the hands that came around your form from behind, planting themselves delicately upon your shoulders. Your crying hitched, breath halting the moment you were embraced. The touch felt so perfect.

 

“You should continue,” he whispered into your hair. “I want them to know how powerless they are in that they cannot stop me from making you mine.”

 

Aside from hopelessness, those statues would bear witness to other new things that night.


End file.
